From the LA Times, well known Around the Horn blowhard Bill Plaschke puts his support behind Mark Sanchez as the SC starting QB.
Booty was the right quarterback for moments like the second half of last year’s Rose Bowl, when everything else was working perfectly, when he was required only to fill in the blanks.
Mark Sanchez is the right quarterback for moments so muddied and unsettled, there is no script, so there are no blanks.
The rest of the Trojans’ season will be filled with those latter moments. As the players fight back from injury and underachievement, there will be no clear paths or pristine plans.
There will be times when a quarterback needs to throw out of a sack to keep a team in field-goal range, or throw across the field while being chased the other direction, or fire a 90-mph fastball through three guys down the middle.
Sanchez did all of those things Saturday, beating the Irish so bad that their student section embarrassed itself with a cursing chant against Carroll.
On the other side, the Daily News/OC Register’s Steve Dilbeck gives the nod to the “Dwarf from Shreveport,” aka JD Brokenfinger, formerly of www.Booties4Booty.com.
There’s clearly no wrong decision here, but if Booty proves healthy, he deserves the nod.
His experience against a good team in a hostile environment could prove the difference.
While USC learned Saturday, the future under Sanchez also is looking pretty.
Now, my opinion has always been that the Dwarf is overrated and that we need to see what else is out there but having to agree with Plaschke drives me crazy. However, as I said before, it’s time to see where we are going to be in 2008—and that might give us the best shot to win in 2007.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Okay, here’s the thing….
We’ve never seen Sanchez under intense pressure. The Notre Dame game was one of those in which everything was going right. So everything looks rosey right now. But QB’s can get rattled and, like all players, can have a marginal to bad day. The difference is that when the QB has a bad day, it gets amplified and creates a feed-back effect. And then we get to hear Plaschke’s ingenious ideas.
*I will guarantee you that Sanchez will fumble the ball… for anyone that has seen his one-handed scrambles, that’s a no brainer.
*I will guarantee you that Sanchez will have batted passes… we saw two(!) against lowly Notre Dame. He’s still figuring out passing lanes.
*I’m willing to bet that Sanchez is just as likely, if not more likely, to throw interceptions against Oregon. We saw TWO against Arizona.
*Due less game exposure, Sanchez is more likely to miss his reads. We saw alot of that in his first start, but great improvement at ND.
Booty has seen all the Pac-10 defenses before. He’s made a lot of mistakes. He’s been under pressure. Collectively, these are called “EXPERIENCE”. And it is the most valuable thing when it comes to NOT making mistakes.
In the upcoming game against Oregon, I think the teams are well matched. It will boil down to which team makes mistakes, just like it did in Oregon’s game vs Cal. That’s why, at this point, I’d go with the experience: JDB.
A final question to ponder: What would you rather have: Booty taking a sack or Sanchez fumbling on a scramble?
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Who’s taller?
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
Both are LISTED??? at 6’3″
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 am
Chris, I would rather us run the ball 40 plus times a game but then again I am not the offensive GENIUS Steve Sarkisian is
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:38 am
Maybe standing on each other’s shoulders
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 am
While is respect Chris’ decision to back Booty, I don’t understand how he could make the points he did and ignore the reality around the situation:
- JDB may have more experience, but that doesn’t mean he’s the better option. How is a QB with a ton of experience supposed to handle a hostile road environment against a really good team if he couldn’t handle a crappy team at home? JDB’s experience means nothing if he can’t utilize it to make himself a better QB, which he hasn’t done.
- JDB has seen other Pac-10 defenses before, but they have also seen him. They haven’t seen Sanchez. If nothing else, Sanchez adds another level to the offense (mobility) that Booty cannot. More importantly, Booty’s mistakes tend to be the same every game. While Sanchez will make his fair share, they will be different kinds of mistakes that an opposing defense may not capitalize as easily on.
- I would rather have Sanchez fumble while scrambling. Why? because that tells me he A) tried to avoid a sack (Booty is a deer in headlights when the pressure is on) B) tried to turn a broken play into something (Booty doesn’t know what “improvise” means) and C) it’s an easily fixable problem, just ask Carson Palmer he did the same and ended up all right.
- Lastly, JDB has a fractured finger. Sanchez had the same injury earlier this year and it took a month to heal. Booty is trying to say that after two weeks, during which he took many reps with that injured finger, he is totally healed and won’t have problems throwing. I know he wants to get back out there and prove himself again. He wants his starting job back, he doesn’t want to be a disappointment, he has the right intentions in mind. But he was already on thin ice before he got hurt, and learning that his performance against stanford was partly due to his injury makes things even worse.
Sanchez has waited every bit as patiently as Booty has for this chance, and unless he struggles and makes bad decisions, he should not be taken out of the game. Booty had his chance, and he lost it in an unfortunate, but fair way. If he has a problem with that he should take Dan Hawkins’ words of advice,”This is Division 1 football! This isn’t intramurals!”
October 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
So if Sanchez has a couple of bad games, do we burn Aaron Corp’s redshirt? Just askin’.